It is the most useful document in your practice and the least often read. Here is what each part means and which patterns indicate what.
An A/R aging report groups outstanding claims by how long they have been unpaid, usually in 30-day buckets. The key number is the percentage of total A/R sitting over 90 days: commonly cited as acceptable under 15 to 20% and healthy under 5 to 10%.
Every claim you have submitted that has not been fully paid, grouped by age. Standard buckets are 0–30, 31–60, 61–90, 91–120 and 120+ days, usually broken down by payer.
Age is normally measured from date of service, though some systems measure from submission. Check which yours uses, because it changes how the buckets should be interpreted — particularly if submission lag is part of your problem.
The single most useful figure. Divide everything in the 91+ buckets by total A/R. Under 15–20% is commonly cited as acceptable, under 5–10% as healthy. Where you should sit depends on payer mix and specialty.
A healthy report is heavily weighted to 0–30 and falls away sharply. A flat distribution across all buckets means claims are entering but not leaving — follow-up has stopped and the backlog is accumulating steadily.
If one payer dominates your 90+ bucket you have a specific problem with a specific payer, not a general follow-up problem. Those have completely different fixes.
It shows what has not been paid. It does not show what was paid incorrectly — a payer paying 80% of the contracted rate appears as fully resolved and disappears from the report entirely.
It also will not show claims that were never submitted, or that were rejected at the clearinghouse and never reached the payer. Those are invisible here and need a separate check.
We will tell you what the distribution indicates, which payers are the problem, what is close to timing out, and roughly how much is recoverable. No charge.
Request a free A/R review